WBEZ hosts Rauner again
Friday, Mar 10, 2017 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From earlier this morning…
Gov. Bruce Rauner is set to appear again on public radio Friday morning to take questions from listeners, part of his monthslong push to take his message directly to Illinois voters.
The 9 a.m. broadcast on WBEZ-FM 91.5’s “Morning Shift” comes two days after Rauner took to Facebook Live to interview Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts about the team, turning to a social media outlet he started using regularly last year. Facebook listed the video as garnering nearly 23,000 views as of Thursday afternoon.
During the record budget impasse, the first-term governor often has appealed to reporters to help him “spread the message” and at times blamed the news media for what he sees as a lack of public awareness about his various positions.
Last summer, Rauner, who’s up for re-election next year, started publicly lamenting his struggles with the press and began a new push to take his message straight to voters.
* I wasn’t able to listen this morning because of other things I needed to do, but from talking to folks who did listen it seems like your typical Rauner event with your typical Chicagoan who doesn’t know much about state government. From the expectedly harsh twitterverse…
- Union proud - Friday, Mar 10, 17 @ 10:04 am:
The comments on WBEZ’s Facebook are truly awesome…
- PJ - Friday, Mar 10, 17 @ 10:05 am:
Nothing Rauner loves more than a forum where he can hem and haw about how all us folks just be needin’ to come together in harmony without anyone with actual knowledge of what he’s done pressing him on his crap.
- Archiesmom - Friday, Mar 10, 17 @ 10:07 am:
I guess I was a little too aggressive the first time I tried to comment on this. I am astounded at some of the things that come out of his mouth when he is speaking to the public. They are so contradicted by his actions in Springfield and by the things that we read every day in this blog. I just hope he keeps getting pressed by the media
- Anonymous - Friday, Mar 10, 17 @ 10:12 am:
Lots to choose from here but I’ll pick “bureaucracy” in higher education. That means about as much as “waste and fraud” in the state budget. Show your work!
- Lucky Pierre - Friday, Mar 10, 17 @ 10:14 am:
Great for the Governor to go on NPR and take the tough questions from a predominately liberal audience.
That is part of the job and he handled himself well. The public is with him on term limits, redistricting, property tax reform and many other issues.
When is the last time the most powerful Democrat in Illinois State Government - Speaker Madigan was on the radio taking calls taking calls ? How about never.
it is more than a running gag on the Steve Cochran WGN morning show how the Speaker hides behind his “spokesman” who says nothing.
- wordslinger - Friday, Mar 10, 17 @ 10:16 am:
This is a very cynical man who believes everyone is stupid.
What’s curious is that Rauner portrays himself as a humble, reasonable, compromiser who wants to help those in need. He must think those qualities are virtues.
Yet his actions reveal a man who is just the opposite. Does he therefore really think that he is unvirtuous? What a con man.
- Annonin' - Friday, Mar 10, 17 @ 10:54 am:
Funny he shows how little he know. Colleges and universities have gutted themselves….and BigBrain wants more
- Cubs in '16 - Friday, Mar 10, 17 @ 11:03 am:
“@GovRauner denies “misinformation” that he pulled votes off grand bargain budget bill. Says sens were pressured by interest groups”
Interest groups funded by him.
- James Knell - Friday, Mar 10, 17 @ 11:17 am:
Happy is the day that Bruce Rauner goes away.
- DuPage Bard - Friday, Mar 10, 17 @ 11:57 am:
Emily Miller really not going to let Gov off the hook for all of this. Maybe he should bring her on staff to get her to quit beating him up.
- No Longer A Lurker - Friday, Mar 10, 17 @ 1:42 pm:
The comments on WBEZ are brutal.
https://www.facebook.com/wbez915/
- RNUG - Friday, Mar 10, 17 @ 2:06 pm:
== The comments on WBEZ are brutal. ==
Yes, they are. Makes the criticism here sound mild …
- Chicago Cynic - Friday, Mar 10, 17 @ 2:43 pm:
AA,
I assume you mean, “Who is Emily Miller and why does she keep calling Rauner out for his absurdly dishonest claims.” There. Fixed it.
- Grandson of Man - Friday, Mar 10, 17 @ 2:48 pm:
The governor used so many of our most vulnerable residents as sacrificial pawns in his quest to sow division between unions and Democrats. He didn’t care that regardless of Speaker Madigan, Democrats were not going to go along with union-busting.
At the point that Democrats made it clear that they’re going to support labor rights was when Rauner should have dropped his demands and focus on the doable, which likely would have included reforms to property taxes and workers comp.
But as some of us said ad nauseam, it’s not part of his Messianic quest to remake Illinois in a red state image. Illinois is a big prize and trophy for Rauner, his super-rich funders, think tank spokespeople and media supporters. He labels people as greedy, corrupt insiders and caricatures, and doesn’t understand or care that people who live paycheck to paycheck have much at stake when they add their voices to our politics and democracy.
- Anonymous - Friday, Mar 10, 17 @ 3:22 pm:
aa - not knowing who Emily Miller is says more about you than anything/anyone else.
- The Real Just Me - Friday, Mar 10, 17 @ 3:36 pm:
So, the SDems are supposed to ignore their own interest groups and pass the grand bargain which hurts those interest groups, but it is OK for the SRepubs to accede to their interest groups and refuse to pass the grand bargain?
- The Real Just Me - Friday, Mar 10, 17 @ 4:01 pm:
Grandson of Man, isn’t workers comp a labor right?
- Grandson of Man - Friday, Mar 10, 17 @ 4:19 pm:
“Grandson of Man, isn’t workers comp a labor right?”
I and possibly many others don’t equate modest workers comp reform with ending fair share fees and collective bargaining rights. Heck I’m trying to be more business-friendly.
Rauner wouldn’t accept modest workers comp reform and wouldn’t let go of ending collective bargaining at the local level for various important subjects. He was once quoted, I believe by Paris Schutze, as saying public employees shouldn’t be able to bargain over anything.